His Kiss and His Bargain

CHAPTER 4

She stood there in the apartment, surrounded by darkness. She could barely make out the shape of anything in the room, but she could tell she had entered through the living room window.

There was silence only disrupted by the hum of the fridge and distant sounds of students in the other apartments in the building.

It was obvious Brooke had been right. The ex-boyfriend was not home. But instead of relief, she felt something else altogether. The strange feeling went through Chloe, causing her body to shudder and break out in goosebumps. A soft gasp escaped her lips.

Before she could analyze what exactly made her feel like a deer about to find its neck between the sharp teeth of a lion, the lights in the room suddenly came on and temporarily blinded her.

Jaxson watched as the woman quickly lifted a hand and shielded her eyes from the bright lights. His own eyes did not appreciate the sudden brightness, but he was bristling with too much fury to be bothered.

If it had not been for the soft gasp that had escaped her lips, she would have been lying on the floor with a bullet in her. She definitely did not look like any killer he had ever seen. She looked like a student.

Jaxson took a deep, calming breath. He was certain if he didn’t, he would burst a blood vessel. His stress levels were already high enough.

It wasn’t hard to conclude what the young lady was doing climbing into his brother’s apartment through the window. She had to be one of Hunter’s many bed conquests.

He looked the young woman up and down again before focusing on her face and her wide, frightened eyes. She looked barely out of her teens. Jaxson doubted she could be more than twenty years old. Was Hunter so good in bed the girl risked breaking her neck just to have another round? He wondered without humor.

If Chloe had held any illusions that it wasn’t a terrible idea to sneak into the apartment, they evaporated the moment her eyes adjusted to the light and she saw the man standing in front of her.

She had never met Brooke’s boyfriend, but seeing the guy now, she understood why her friend had been head over heels and now a distraught drunk.

Although the look in his blue eyes was cold and terrifying, there was no denying the man was breathtaking. It wasn’t just the almost too perfect angles of his face or his dark brown hair that hung loosely around his face, almost touching his shoulders. He had a lightly tanned skin that looked like he had spent a little time under the sun but was flawless.

Chloe could hazard a guess that he stood at six-foot-plus, towering over her own five-foot-five despite the distance between them. The well-tailored suit he wore emphasized rather than hide the toned, lean body beneath. And still, that was not all that drew her eyes to him and held her captive.

There was an air around the man that screamed of authority, control, and determination. Chloe shuddered just taking it all in.

It was hard to imagine him as a student in college and even harder to picture him as Brooke’s boyfriend. But she had found him in the apartment and there was no indication that the space and everything in it did not belong to him. So it had to be him. And he had caught her sneaking in through a window. She was screwed.

While she had been blinking, adjusting to the light, Jaxson had hidden his gun. As she shamelessly perused his body with her eyes, he did the same.

He took in the strange color of her eyes that couldn’t seem to decide whether they were green or blue. Freckles dusted her nose and cheeks and became even more visible as the woman grew pale as she realized she had been caught breaking in. Her long blond hair was tied back, away from her face, but a few strands had defiantly gotten loose and hung around her cheeks.

His eyes traveled her lean small body until they reached her worn boots on her feet. He did love a woman in boots. Jaxson blinked, suddenly shocked at his own thoughts. He looked back up at the woman’s face and allowed irritation and anger to swell in him once again.

“Are you that horny that you would risk breaking your neck for a rough ride?” He demanded suddenly in a harsh voice.

Chloe took a step back as though she had been slapped. For a moment, she was sure she hadn’t heard him right, but then the words continued to ring in her ears like an awful song. The arrogant ass, she thought angrily.

She forgot she had just been caught sneaking into the man’s apartment and lifted her chin. She had already had one hell of a long day. While her bed still called to her insistently, she had chosen to help her friend out of a terrible mistake. Chloe did not appreciate being mistaken for one of the guy’s many notches on his bedpost.

For a second she wondered just how many women he had slept with that he couldn’t even recognize that she was not one of them. But the question was irrelevant.

She gave him a hard glare. It didn’t matter how handsome the man was. Everyone went to the toilet, Chloe mentally reminded herself. And all toilet business didn’t smell of roses, regardless of who did it. It was a saying her grandmother taught her years ago. The thought gave her enough attitude to straighten her back and face the man.

“You must have a lot of ladies faking orgasms in your bed to have developed such an enormous ego.”

It was Jaxson’s turn to look as confused as a crocodile in the middle of a desert. When he had first seen her, he hadn’t imagined the woman could talk with so much strength. And try to attack his ego with such crude words. Not that he had an ego to attack or any doubts in his abilities, which she seemed to suggest.

“A woman never fakes anything in my bed,” he told her as calmly as he could without giving away any emotion, not even anger.

Unfortunately, it seemed his earlier comment had provoked something in her and she was not yet done with him.

“And you know this… How? By all the staged screams aimed to massage your ego?” She chuckled dryly before adding. “Maybe you should take a peek and listen to actual genuine screams a woman can give herself on something as small as a vibrator the size of a finger.”

Jaxson had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that. The image she painted was certainly not one he had envisioned having that night. “Excuse me?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “You are very much excused for thinking the only reason a woman would climb through your window is for a hard cock.”

This time, he shook his head in disbelief and chuckled. The fatigue he had been battling, all but forgotten and replaced with just plain bafflement. He caught the woman sneaking into his brother’s apartment. It was a criminal act. He could have her arrested for the offense. Hell, she would have had a bullet in her had he not hesitated. And yet she stood before him, daring to be offended and answering him back with sass as though he were the one caught sneaking into her apartment.

“Oh. Okay. Enlighten me then. Why exactly are you breaking in here? Are you a thief, then?” He looked her up and down. “You don’t look like a thief. But then again, what do I know?” He certainly hadn’t known she had one hell of a mouth on her. A mouth he wouldn’t mind shutting up with his own. Another thought that shocked him, wondering where it had originated.

She pulled him out of his thoughts with her answer. “I am not a thief.”

Finally, she was starting to show the embarrassment of being caught like a thief she denied being.

“And you are not horny?”

“No,” she replied through her teeth.

Jaxson could practically hear the words whisper in his ear. ‘Steer clear, here comes trouble.’ But he was doomed. The connection between his feet and his brain was malfunctioning. He was walking towards her without even realizing it.

He only stopped when he was in her space and she had to look up to keep eye contact.

“So,” he drawled. “You are not a thief, and you are not horny.”

Chloe wished he would stop saying that. She clenched her teeth and didn’t respond. It wasn’t lost on her that she had temporarily lost her mind and said some really shocking things. She wasn’t going to do anything else stupid. The list of offenses against her was already damning. If he reported her to the school or the police; Chloe knew she could immediately lose her scholarship and would be thrown out of school. The thought made her blood run cold.

No, she wouldn’t do anything else to make the situation worse. She had to talk to him and beg him to forget the whole thing. Then she had to leave. Brooke would have to take care of her own pictures. Chloe had tried and gotten caught for her trouble.

Jaxson’s eyes narrowed, as though he was deep in thought. It was clear she was too, but he did not know what was going through her head.

So close to her, he could almost count every freckle, and he had the disturbing desire to trace them with his tongue. A frown creased his forehead. He could certainly understand why Hunter had taken this one to bed. Even though the thought of his brother with her drew so much irritation in him, he had to draw a slow breath just to suppress it.

He looked into her eyes again. The irritation in him refused to be caged, and it spilled out in his next words.

“Are you then a hooker? Come to collect an outstanding p*****t?”

Jaxson knew he had gone too far. The realization hit him just as he saw her small hand flying towards his face. But too far or not, he wasn’t going to allow the woman to slap him.

In a swift reflex born of the need to protect his life, he grabbed her wrist and used it to pull her forward. The short distance that had held them apart vanished in a heartbeat and their bodies crushed against each other. Her smaller, softer one against his masculine, hard body.

A gasp escaped her lips. Jaxson heard it and ignored it as in that moment he stopped thinking altogether and bent his head, capturing her lips like they were rightfully his to take.

She only froze for a second before melting against him. Jaxson vaguely took note that she did not kiss him back, but allowed him to have his way. She did not push him away, either. Instead, her free hand came up and fisted in the label of his jacket as though she were seeking support to stay on her feet.

Jaxson thrust his tongue in her mouth and tasted her. She tasted of bitter coffee and sweet strawberries, a weird combination he was certain he could never forget after this.

His hand around her wrist tightened even as the other wandered over her body until he firmly grabbed her ass and drew her even closer to his body.

The hard ridge testing the resistance of his zipper was hard to miss, and she gasped once more, shuddering in his arms. It was enough to bring Jaxson to his senses.

He tore his mouth away almost violently and glared at her.

What had he done? Since when did he go after Hunter’s booty calls? Jaxson took a step back as though he feared she would suddenly grab him and pull him back to finish what he started. Not that his body would complain. Need pulsed through his blood, heavy and strong.

He was disgusted with himself. Jaxson turned away from her and tried to compose himself with a few deep breaths. He had no idea what had gotten into him to kiss a woman who had sneaked into his brother’s apartment. A woman who clearly knew his brother very intimately. She even knew which window to use that apparently didn’t lock.

Fury and self-disgust made him clench his fists. He’d had a long day, Jaxson thought. Certainly, that explained his lack of sense and stupid actions.

A little satisfied with his own explanation, he turned back and faced her. He hadn’t forgotten she was there. How could he when all his senses seemed to be tuned in to her? He felt more than heard her short, shaky breaths, as though they were his own. The quick rise and fall of her chest drew his eyes to her chest. Not something he wanted to think about.

“Get out of here.” His voice came out hard and cold, but it was to be expected. He was disappointed in himself and his lack of self-control. He was also angry with Hunter for acquiring so many one-night stands that some felt the need to sneak back into his apartment for a repeat.

He was also angry at the lady, who hadn’t even bothered to push him away. Was one brother truly interchangeable with the other just like that? He wondered.

She blinked at him, still looking very much dazed. It looked as though her brain hadn’t come on yet after the kiss. A kiss that had left her lips swollen, wet and red. Jaxson swallowed the groan that threatened to leave his throat.

“I said get out of here.”

To his shock, she turned to the window as though she fully intended to leave the same way she had come in. Jaxson cursed under his breath. He stepped forward and literally dragged her to the front door, threw it open, and pushed her out of the apartment.

“If you know what is good for you… You will never step foot here again.” Without waiting for a response, he shut the door in her face.